The State of Big Data: What the Surveys Say

As a data scientist, I should believe in the value of surveys and other data collection mechanisms. In the case of IT industry surveys I’m not convinced how accurately the respondents report their reality while rushing through online surveys. So taking the following results with a grain of salt, I found an intriguing article appearing in Forbes: The State of Big Data: What The Surveys Say.

This article is a survey of big data surveys conducted by BCG, IBM, Forbes Market Insights, Bain, TEKsystems, Gartner, Tech Pro Research, Enterprise Management Associates and 9sight Consulting, and CompTIA. Given the breadth of these surveys, I think the results may assuage my survey concerns. Here is a short list of my favorite findings:

Are 166% more likely to make most decisions based on data

More than nine in 10 companies (92%) who said that they had made sufficient use of big data met or exceeded their goals, while just 5% of those who made sufficient use of it fell short

Twice as likely to be in the top quartile of financial performance within their industries

90% of IT leaders and 84% of IT professionals believe investments of time, money and resources into big data initiatives are worthwhile

64% of organizations are investing or planning to invest in big data technology compared with 58% in 2012

Of those who have implemented big data, 82% report seeing at least some payoff in terms of goals achieved. Only 4% say they’ve experienced no identifiable value

68% of companies are running two or more big data projects as part of their big data initiatives

93% of survey participants say data is critically important to their business

I consider these results as being supportive of the notion that this “new” industry has serious legs, but then again I’m not of the opinion that big data is really anything new at all, but just a natural evolution of practices we’ve been doing for decades.

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